Update of Factsheet 9b: Public awareness and sanitation marketing

Update of Factsheet 9b: Public awareness and sanitation marketing

As you may know, the Secretariat of the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance is currently in the process of finalising a factsheet book. We are preparing a factsheet book that will comprise of 13 thematic factsheets. We would therefore like to invite you to discuss and give further input to Factsheet 9: Public awareness raising and sanitation marketing. We would be delighted if we could receive further input for the factsheet as soon as possible so that we could have a final version and print the book. We would like to print the book end November.

Current status of Factsheet 9b
A couple of new things have been going on with the factsheet. Saskia Castelein (WSSCC), Thilo Panzerbieter, (GTO), Carol McCreary (PHLUSH) , Jack Sim (WTO), Denise Scrase(WTO), Elisabeth (GIZ) and Leonie (GIZ) have substantially contributed to this factsheet in the past couple of weeks. Thank you very much for your feedback and suggestions!

Carol had suggested that we should have the examples right after the specific introductions. Therefore the order would be e.g. Introduction: Public Awareness Raising followed by Examples of Public Awareness Raising. What do the others think about this?

• In addition, there is a new example of a sanitation marketing programme which is the “Setting up of Sani Shop in Cambodia”. The information was provided by Jack Sim (WTO) and Denise Scrase(WTO). This can be found on page 6. It would be great if others could read the section and tell us what you think. We currently have 3 examples of public awareness raising and 4 examples of sanitation marketing programmes. The examples Setting up of Sani Shop in Cambodia and The “Easy Latrine” design in Cambodia which was started by the IDE are similar examples therefore we might have to merge the two examples or choose one. Please tell me what you think about this.
• There is a new paragraph about social media as a new emerging tool for low budget awareness raising. This is the 3rd Paragraph under the section: Introduction: Public Awerness Raising and can be found under on Page 2
• There is a new paragraph about the WSSCC’s Global Sanitation Fund under the section: Introduction: Sanitation Marketing on page 2.
• In addition there are a few lines about the Water and Sanitation Program and the newly released Sanitation Marketing Toolkit. This can be found on the top of page 3
• Saskia's contribution has substantially assisted us in making the sections clearer. Some of her comments are still there as they require further input. Please do have a look and answer where you can.
• Leonie mentioned that there are some authors who also include policy as the sixth P. Leonie could you please state some references for this? I also think that it would be beneficial to mention some lines about it as we already have some information about policy development. WG leads please tell us what you think about this.
• There is a new reference in the factsheet:

Attached you will find the document. Please use the document attached when providing your input.

I look very much forward to your feedback! It would be preferable if you could upload your comments and input here in the discussion forum. That way, more members can contribute and discuss any open questions left before finalising. However, If you would like to send me your feedback directly, please email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or to my colleague Leonie Kappauf: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Re: Update of Factsheet 9b: Public awareness and sanitation marketing

I totally agree with you on :
"There is a strong tendency in CLTS and sanitation marketing project reports to highlight only the solutions that do work. Unfortunately, these reports do not show much self-criticism which makes it difficult for outsiders to evaluate the program objectively. Implementers should not hold back on sharing about their learning curves and limitations for mutual exchange and strengthening between organizations"

My remarks are the follwing:

So far the market based approach have shown good results for parts of the population who can actually afford the products, if some villages are reaching ODF (open defecation free) status through this process, still is remaining a consequent very poor part of the population who can't afford the proposed products. So what happen next ?

Systems are still not technicaly sustainable on the long term, septic tanks in Vietnam, pit latrines in Benin and pour flush latrines in Cambodia or indonesia might not be emptied safely in most cases.

The phasing and junction between "adapted" CLTS (Comunity Led Total Sanitation) programs and introduction of the sanitation marketing approach should probably be studied deeper.

I hope two areas of research will be investigated, one is the introduction of eco-san products in sanitation marketing programs, the other is a market driven motivation for treatment and re-use of sludge that private operators collect in developing countries where police control of desludging can't be achieved.

Thanks for this factsheet and congratulation for this nice compilation.

Re: Update of Factsheet 9b: Public awareness and sanitation marketing

Thanks, Doreen, for organizing us so well and laying out the things you want us to think about.

Looks like good progress so far. I think it would really be great to have a lot of people look at this. I'll get back to it by the end of the week; first I promised to look at WG1 factsheet which still isn't laid out.

How do others feel about changing the order of the sections so the examples illustrate the descriptions?

While reading through the factsheet again I wondered if it might require some more explanation for the fact that CLTS and SLTS are mentioned as the first example of sanitation marketing programmes. Many authors do not regard CLTS as sanitation marketing (the WSP Global Scaling Up Rural Sanitation Project for example combines CLTS and sanitation marketing (and behavior change communication)).
In addition, support of the supply side is mentioned as a component of sanitation marketing in the introductory section for sanitation marketing but CLTS does genuinely not support private suppliers.
On the other hand, CLTS could be regarded as a form of marketing that uses disgust and shame as negative and status as positive motivation forces for toilet adoption.

Sanitation marketing is an umbrella term for many different approaches and maybe we should be more clear what we understand as “minimum requirements” and use appropriate examples to make the content of the factsheet more consistent and avoid confusion. What do you think?

I agree with Carol that it would be easier to read through the factsheet if the order is changed so that the examples illustrate the sections.

3. In addition, we had a discussion with Leonie today about the exclusion of CLTS as an example of sanitation marketing programme. Leonie thought that it would be best not to have it as an example because CLTS includes no support of the supply side, which has been defined as a component of sanitation marketing in the introductory section. Leonie therefore inserted a box where she has introduced CLTS and sanitation marketing. Have a look on page 6!

4. I have also included the information that Ben posted above about additional challenges that need to be taken into consideration in terms of sanitation marketing such as reaching the very poor, the problems of systems not being technically sustainable in the long term, the phasing and junction between adapted CLTS and sanitation marketing approaches and the importance of analysing microcredits in sanitation marketing . In addition, I have also added your point on the need for further investigation in market driven motivation for treatment and reuse. Thank you for this information Ben! Your input can be found on page 8 right before the summary section. However the criticism of microcredits should be referenced for authenticity, Do you want to take this up Ben?

5. In addition Ben, could you please give us some information about the support of pit emptiers in the Easy Latrine project so that we can have some information about the value chain aspect? This information is required for the easy latrine design in the Cambodia section on page 7

6. At Denise: Could you also give us example of the emotions that you point out in the sentence below? This can be found on page 5

Sanishop applied aspiration sanitation marketing which was driven by the belief that emotions are the main drivers of investment decisions in toilets.

7. And maybe to the rest: It would be great if we made the sentence below a bit easier to understand. This can be found on Page 1 Number 4: Advocating sanitation with decision makers in the public, private and civil sectors.

“A cross ministerial consensus is just as important as broad support towards sanitation improvements though decision makers in public, private and civil organisations”

What is meant by a cross ministerial consensus? Are we talking of a sector wide approach here or an intersected multi-sectoral consensus? Can we specify the consensus a little bit more elaborately?

8. You may have also noticed that Easy Latrine and The SaniShop in Cambodia have been merged to one example of a sanitation marketing programme.

Last but not least, this factsheet is still quite long. Due to the fact that we need to shorten it, I would like us to omit the section: Background/Motivation which can be found on Page 2. In addition, how about moving the summary to the very top to give an overview for those who want to quickly know what the factsheet is about? Please give me your feedback about this.

Please note that the deadline to give me your input is the 27th of November. Please use the document attached to make any further changes.

Re: Update of Factsheet 9b: Public awareness and sanitation marketing

I received the following email from Jack Sim (WTO) which includes information about World Toilet Day and World Toilet Summits that should be included in the factsheet. I have posted it here with his permission. I look forward to your contributions and feedback.

Thanks and best regards

Doreen

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It is true that CLTS is only driving demand and provides no supply of products. That is why SaniShop is very important to follow behind CLTS to support CLTS so that people will not go back to open defecation when their unlined hand-dug latrine collapsed.

Example of emotion as a driver for investment in latrine:

The human being thinks rationally but feels emotionally.

CLTS successfully triggers shame as an emotion to drive demand. SaniShop uses several others: Jealousy, Need for community recognition (Keeping up with the Joneses), filial piety, love for own children, safety, protection, macho, etc to triggers purchase of toilets.

Emotional marketing is not a one-size-fit-all strategy. It is a tactical approach which requires one to customize selling messages to each customer differently according to their personal needs. Eg, if the neighbors have toilets, you'd feel jealous or pressured to also have a toilet just to keep up with the Joneses, failing which you may feel unrecognized by the community who might be unhappy that you are causing the flies with your open defecation habit.

To achieve this, a toilet has to look really nice and aspirational to own. What is considered nice and aspirational is also not absolute. It depends on the person's perspective of his environment and how he reacts also depends on how he prioritises his expenditure.
A cellphone is both aspirational and functional. He buys it for both reasons. If he buys a cellphone before he buys a toilet, it is a market-failure. Therefore the SaniShop marketing model focus on aspirational marketing as a priority.

World Toilet Day 19 November

World Toilet Day is one of the most phenomenal sanitation marketing outburst that is gaining great impact on awareness of sanitation. Started as the founding day of the World Toilet Organization, 19 November caught the imagination of the global media and sanitation activist alike and each year thereafter it grew by self-generated crowd actitivites until it became an unstoppable force in creating sanitation awareness worldwide. Activities ranges from protest in Washington DC for Sanitation as a Human Right, to Press Conferences in Berlin, to Minister cleaning wet market toilets in Sarawak, Malaysia; Sanitation Mart in Lima, Peru; Sanitation Concert in Moscow, The Big Squat in univerisities worldwide, Golden Poop Award stand-up comics in London and Singapore; Crisis Talks by End Water Poverty, Talk Shit for a Week program by Water.org, GDP4GDP by WSSCC, etc, etc. Even Bill Gates, Shah Rukh Khan is helping us tweet and retweet World Toilet Day messages.

Last year 2010, World Toilet Day ranks 5th position on Twitter, one notch below the world premier of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and beating Justin Bieber at some moments during that day.

WTO managed to rope in Unilever to be the Official Sponsor of World Toilet Day and is now tapping on their retail in-store activities next year to engage supermarket shoppers with discounts of toilet related products on World Toilet Day.

World Toilet Summit

World Toilet Summits works like the 'Olympics' of sanitation. Cities in the world bid for the hosting rights for the conference each year largely because of the media attention it brings to the host city and the awareness that it generates for the sanitation agenda.

This is annual sanitation marketing event that is widely covered by the global media each year. While most sanitation conferences focus on the MDG and poverty sanitation, World Toilet Summit straddles toilet needs of both the developed and the developing world thus gaining much more media attention for toilets and sanitation.

The summit focus on the global media throughout the year launching powerful press conferences before and during the event and these are captured by major TV stations, radio, newsprint, wired agencies, social media and all other forms of traditional medias.

This sanitation marketing series started in Singapore 2001 and have since traveled to Seoul 2002, Taipei 2003, Beijing 2004, Belfast 2005, Moscow 2006, New Delhi 2007, Macao 2008, Singapore 2009, Philadelphia 2010 and Hainan 2011. Next year, the host is Durban, South Africa.

Re: Update of Factsheet 9b: Public awareness and sanitation marketing

I received the following email from Sjoerd Nienhuys
www.nienhuys.info
) for Facthsheet 9b. I look forward to your contributions and feedback.

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Dear Doreen,

Sustainable sanitation is related to (sustainable). That is because, due to European flush toilet, almost the whole world thinks that quality sanitation is done with flushing it away.

I am working with a few projects that also have village water supply schemes
(Pakistan , Tajikistan ) as well as house improvements with ecosan sanitation.

However, the first thing the villagers want when they have better water supply is a pour-flush toilet, and eventually a full-flush toilet, and eventually running water to do their laundry.

The resulting sewerage and other surface water pollution as well as ground water pollution are not considered when planning the (drinking) water supply schemes.

Once people have installed their pour-flush systems they never-ever want to consider ecosan toilets or urine diversion toilets.

It is important that projects installing (drinking) water supply schemes, at the same time start the discussions about the maintenance and operation cost of these water supply schemes and the resulting sewerage.

A. Villagers that have a communal tap should pay a basic (minimum) maintenance tariff.

B. Those who have an on-site connection and an ecosan or dry pit or urine diversion toilet without water flush also pay only the basic tariff.

C. Villagers (or town people) who install a pour-flush toilet should pay for each pour-flush toilet a price which is at least the double tariff of the basic.

D. People who install a full flush toilet should pay for each unit four times the basic tariff.

In addition the categories C and D should be obliged to realise pre-treatment and pay sewerage disposal charges.

This way people may be more interested to start thinking about the ecosan solutions, before they install the toilet on site or many toilets in the building.